The lectures and discussions presented here make up the first of the so-called five Priest Courses. They record the first steps of the remarkable journey taken in 1921 by a small group of dedicated souls who, out of their own inner needs and guided by Rudolf Steiner, sought a path to Christian religious renewal.

Addressing the group with warm intimacy, Steiner frames their task not primarily in theological terms, but as a need for a renewing of 'the religious', or 'the working of the religious element as such'. For this, the sermon (or how we speak) is central, for today we must use language in new ways. We cannot reopen the spiritual worlds by starting from 'old conditions'. Traditional religious life has become too corrupted, while modern culture has radically changed and become divorced from tradition.